Did you know that the first Thanksgiving meal included venison, fowl, corn, nuts, and shellfish?

 Did you know that the first Thanksgiving meal included venison, fowl, corn, nuts, and shellfish?

Thanksgiving day usually revolves around delicious and bountiful meals.

It is typical to find dishes like bread stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and so much more on the dinner table.

And, who could forget the main course, the turkey!

When did the day of thanks become turkey day? Let’s dive into some history and uncover this fowl mystery.

few years ago, I made my inner history nerd unbelievably giddy and spent a few weeks digging in to one question: What was actually eaten at the first Thanksgiving? The results were surprising (no turkey?!), illuminating, and just plain curious. So leading up to November, I thought I'd give you something to chew on besides what's on your table. First, let's set the scene:

The modern Thanksgiving holiday is based off a festival shared by the pilgrims and the Wampanoag Native American tribe at Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, in 1621. The feast purportedly celebrated the colonists’ first successful harvest in the New World. While modern Thanksgiving always lands on the fourth Thursday in November, the original went down sometime earlier in autumn, closer to harvest time.